


2:15 AM in a public restroom

by KrasotaBella



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (not directly though but the vibes are there), Body Horror, But Worse, Canon Typical Sense Of Unease, Character Study, Drowsiness, Eldritch Sickfic, Eye Horror, Eyes, Horror, I wanted to write angst but then my Lemon Demon Brain turned on, Nasty, References to Depression, Scoptophobia, Sickfic, Surrealism, This one gets Funky, Vomiting, Weirdness, and here we are, canon-typical weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 13:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20931110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrasotaBella/pseuds/KrasotaBella
Summary: -But Jon trudged on, living off of stale statements and bland tea. It was a pitiful time, but he’d have to make due. And that was fine.--Until he got sick, that is.-





	2:15 AM in a public restroom

Jonathan Sims was having a pretty bad few weeks.

Of course, this in it of itself is not that unusual. As the withering, ravenous archivist for The Magnus Institute, life was filled with hardships. These hardships seem to manifest in the form of sentient meat blobs, worm creatures, repressed childhood trauma, etc etc etc. You get the jist. But lately, out of the past four years of his hellish job, had been a _special_ kind of horrible for the archivist.

Jon was living at the institute now, sleeping in a cot in the back (Martin’s old cot, but he tried not to think about that). His daily routine would usually consist of waking up, sitting in his office, dragging himself through a statement, brooding, then going back to sleep. 

It’s not like he was alone, though. He had Daisy and Basira and Melanie. Well, kind of. Melanie still hated his guts, and Basira...Basira was strange. She was congenial enough, he guessed. But she was never genuine around him, never totally on his side. It was like he was a lab rat, and she was observing him with an air of mild curiosity. Daisy was different, though. They were both monsters, both scrambling to keep a hold on their wilting humanity. Both starving, in their various ways. And with that, they had developed a bone-deep solidarity. It was, in all honestly, one of the only highlights of his monstrous life. 

Not that he enjoyed his state of living. God, he _hated_ it. Pent up like an animal. Because of course, going outside was out of the question. Ever since the girls had found the tapes, he was under total lockdown. Trapped in those stuffy archives, like a buried corpse. (He didn’t like that analogy very much, reminded him too much of The Buried). But Jon trudged on, living off of stale statements and bland tea. It was a pitiful time, but he’d have to make due. And that was fine.

Until he got sick, that is. 

It started small. Quick bouts of dizziness whenever stood up, having to squint against florescent institute lights, an overall sense of heaviness. Nothing too out of the ordinary for the head archivist. Just general signs of sleep deprivation, as he told himself. But it wasn’t long before it really started to dig in it’s heels. His skin became clammy and feverish, and his hands shook violently. It was a wonder he could still hold a pen, as he scribbled down increasingly illegible notes about statements. His eyes were glazed, and his hair was matted. It was like something had sucked all the remaining vibrancy from his being, leaving Jon a shivering mess.

He was tired. He was always tired, his limbs refusing to work as they should. He would spend hours just sitting in his office, slumped over his desk like a dead man. Unfocused and still, thinking about absolutely nothing, but absolutely everything at the same time. The others picked up on his situation pretty fast. They helped in whatever ways they knew how—dimmer lighting, wet rags, the basics. But it didn’t take long for the realization that this wasn’t any normal human disease. No, of course not, it was never that simple.

The Beholding was starting to get very, very fed up with its little archivist. 

The vague presence of The Eye was ever present in the archives, as long as anyone could remember. But for Jon, it was _suffocating_. It pressed hard on his pitiful form, buzzing loudly behind his eyes and making his ears ring from the pure potency of its gaze. He wanted to scream, to cry, to curl up and melt into the floorboards. Anything to evade it’s unbearable stare.

He supposed it was kind of grounding, if he tried to put it in a good light. If his body was still susceptible to sickness (ignoring the fact that this was an angry god-induced eldritch mega-fever), that meant he had to still be _somewhat human. Even if it was sketchy, the thought was something to hold onto._

And that’s what was going through the mind of Jonathan Sims as he knelt on the nice white tile, puking his guts out in the men’s washroom. 

It was early in the morning, before the sun had yet to rise. _Two Hours, Fifteen Minutes, And 27 Seconds Into The Day._ The Eye’s sudden burst of raw information made him lurch, heaving into the stool once more. It was almost sad to watch, the man who saved the world lay shivering on the floor of a public restroom. His brought a trembling hand to his mouth, coughing hard before wiping off the bile on his sleeve. Jon scrunched his nose at the taste of copper in his mouth, before pausing for a second. His eyes found the smear of vomit on his arm again.

Black. It was black. Or, that’s what he thought. Further examination showed that it was simply a dark red, hard to properly make out through the spots in his vision. He blinked, and peaked over the toilet bowl. The substance inside was the very same hue.

It was blood.

Jonathan Sims was no medical professional—far from it. But he did know that throwing up startling amounts of blood was not a good sign. Was it internal bleeding? He wasn’t injured, he hadn’t left the archives in months. Yes, lately the days had been a blur, but he would have remembered if he’d been in a situation dire enough for organ puncture. And even if so, this was _not_ your average amount of blood. If he were a normal human, there’s no way in hell he’d still be alive. But, he reckoned it was part of his Beholding powers. The horrors and wonders of hyper-regenerative abilities never failed to amaze him.

Even still, he started into the bowl, eyebrows furrowing in disgust and confusion. It was blood, that he knew, but there was...something else. It seemed thicker than blood, like a heavy whipping cream. Small ripples careered through the deep crimson, staining the white porcelain. The very nature of it just seemed _wrong_, but he couldn’t quite place why.

_Oh._

_Oh, god._

The bloody pulp blinked up at him, and Jonathan screamed.

It writhed in its bowl, with two—no, three—five—twelve—uncountable eyes. Bulbous and hazy, they bubbled up from the substance like rotten eggs. All different colored irises, all bloodshot, all staring directly at him.

He panicked, frantic hands quickly flushing the toilet, and he could barely watch as the _thing_ swirled down the drain. Distantly, through the adrenaline and terror, he swore he could hear a it scream back at him.

And in the aftermath of shock, heart still pounding over the thrum of static, the archivist simply let his trembling form slide to the tile floor.

Jonathan Sims didn’t sleep that night

**Author's Note:**

> my very first tma fic! whoo hoo!! have fun with this half-character-study-half-surrealistic-nonsense-two-hour-writing-extravaganza I made at 11 pm on a school night


End file.
